A rehearsal recording of BLACK SABBATH playing a previously unreleased song apparently called "Slapback" in 1979 during the pre-production sessions for the band's "Heaven And Hell" album can be streamed below.

The track, which features Ronnie James Dio on vocals, Tony Iommi on guitar and Bill Ward on drums, was uploaded to YouTube by Gary Rees, the stepson and executor of the estate of SABBATH's longtime keyboardist Geoff Nicholls.

 

The "Slapback" upload comes a month and a half after Rees shared a previously unreleased rehearsal recording of BLACK SABBATH playing the "Heaven And Hell" title track during the same sessions. That recording featured Nicholls on bass due to Geezer Butler's absence during the initial writing stage for the LP.

 

Rees stated about "Slapback": "This latest upload from the Geoff Nicholls estate I believe is called 'Slapback' from the scrawling on the cassette and the chorus. This is from the same cassette as the 'Heaven & Hell' upload on this channel. It doesn't sound like a typical SABBATH song if it is them but it does sound like Ronnie James Dio."

 

Dio joined SABBATH for the first time in 1979 and quickly found kindred spirits in Iommi, Butler, and Ward. When "Heaven And Hell" was released in April 1980, the album was met with effusive reviews for the band's return to form on metal masterpieces like "Neon Knights" and the title track. The album reached No. 9 in the U.K. and No. 28 in the U.S., where it was also certified platinum.

 

Geoff Nicholls played keyboards on all of SABBATH's albums between 1980 and 1995 and toured with them. He died in January 2017 after a long battle with lung cancer.